Two UIC professors receive 2026 Sloan Research Fellowships

Two University of Illinois Chicago researchers, mathematician Philip Engel and chemist Andy Nguyen, have been awarded the Sloan Research Fellowship. The prestigious fellowship recognizes "early-career researchers whose creativity, innovation and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders."

Listen to story summary

Engel and Nguyen, both faculty members in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, are among the cohort of 126 fellows announced by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on Feb. 17. Since its inaugural year in 1955, 23 UIC faculty members have received this competitive fellowship.

Engel and Nguyen will receive $75,000 to advance their research over the next two years.

Finding beautiful shapes

Engel, an assistant professor in the department of math, statistics and computer science, works on Hodge theory, a branch of math that studies complex nonlinear shapes using linear tools. Specifically, he researches Calabi-Yau varieties, a special type of geometric shape important in string theory in physics.

"There are three spatial dimensions in time, which are the ones we're familiar with," Engel said. "But then there's supposed to be these six extra dimensions, small dimensions that form this type of geometry called a Calabi-Yau variety."

Engel probes how these shapes degenerate, or how they can deform and break. Imagine, for example, pinching along the equator of a sphere so it narrows to an hourglass-like shape.

"Something changes when the equator finally pinches to a point," Engel said. "There are now two spheres. That's an example of a degeneration, because the topology, the shape, fundamentally changes."

Mathematicians harness computing to get at these complex questions, writing code that can run numerical experiments and produce evidence. But they also use analog tools.

Philip Engel (Photo: Katie Klema) Math-inspired weavings created by Engel and artist Victoria Manganiello.
(Photo: Philip Engel)

"I'm often scribbling on paper," Engel said. "Even though you can't visualize something in 4D or 6D, there are drawings you use to manipulate conceptual ideas."

The aesthetic component of math has long attracted Engel, from his past as a math-obsessed kid to his present scholarship. Outside of his teaching and research, Engel has collaborated with an artist to create physical large-scale weaving pieces inspired by mathematical work.

"To theoretical mathematicians, a primary motivation is to find beautiful theorems or discover these geometric objects that are incredibly symmetric and beautiful," he said. "They're very hard to understand, and maybe you don't encounter them in daily life. But you know they're out there."

The math department at UIC has been a supportive and collaborative environment for Engel to grow his research, he said.

"The grad students are very smart and passionate," he said. "My subfield is particularly active, and we have a strong research environment and community of people to understand and engage with ideas."

Engel said the Sloan Research Fellowship will give him freedom to follow ideas wherever they lead. "Some of the most interesting questions in my field don't have an obvious path forward, and this support allows me to take the time to explore them deeply," he said.

"Math is not complete. It's active, and there are new things being discovered all the time."

Complexity from simplicity

Nguyen is an assistant professor of chemistry. His lab conducts synthetic chemistry to create molecules inspired by nature.

His goal is to mimic a class of biomolecules called enzymes: complicated nanomachines that catalyze, or speed up, chemical reactions in living systems. Since enzymes in nature are specifically adapted to fit their circumstances, translating them for human applications can be complicated. Often, scientists use precious metals like platinum and palladium as catalysts instead.

"But precious metals are scarce in nature," Nguyen said. "If Mother Nature has evolved ways to conduct chemical reactions without precious metals, why can't we?"

To find the answer, Nguyen takes inspiration from a simpler time: more than four billion years ago.

Andy Nguyen (Photo: Martin Hernandez/UIC) A peptide framework created in Nguyen's lab. (Photo: Nguyen)

"Nature teaches us that complexity actually comes from simplicity through the process of evolution, wherein simpler things evolve into more complicated things over time," Nguyen said. "Today's enzymes would have been smaller and simpler billions of years ago. Maybe before we can recreate the full complexity of today's enzyme, we mimic its ancestor."

In other words, instead of duplicating enzymes in the lab pound for pound, Nguyen is building enzyme-equivalent structures from scratch with more basic building blocks - namely, smaller, simpler fragments of proteins called peptides.

"However, a single peptide is too small to do much. The challenge is to get the smaller peptides to come together and cooperate as a much larger structure," Nguyen said.

This process is called self-assembly. Nguyen's lab has invented assemblies that form porous, spongelike crystals called frameworks. Behaving like enzymes, these frameworks can mutate to evolve new structures and abilities. For example, Nguyen's lab is interested in developing peptide frameworks that catalyze energy conversion (e.g., from renewable resources into electricity) or remove toxic chemicals from drinking water.

Nguyen said the Sloan Research Fellowship allows him to pursue these and other research avenues, including those yet unknown to him.

"This opportunity will allow me to explore the rabbit holes that researchers are rarely afforded the time and resources to explore. Curiosity-driven research creates the most unusual and original discoveries. This fellowship will help me remain open-minded to all research directions," he said, adding that the award would not be possible without the students and postdoctoral researchers in his lab.

Tess Joosse, associate director of research and science communication, contributed to this story.